


14.04: Knock-Off Zachary Quinto

by nochickflickpodcast



Series: NCFM Season 14 [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (No) Chick Flick Moments, Character Analysis, Comedy, Discussion, Episode Analysis, Episode: s14e04 Mint Condition, Fancast, Gen, Humor, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Meta, Podcast, Screenplay/Script Format, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 21:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19411609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nochickflickpodcast/pseuds/nochickflickpodcast
Summary: Join us in covering S14E4, "Mint Condition", or the one where Sam has a secret, Dean makes a friend, and both brothers let their freak flags fly. Tune in to this nerd-tactular, spooks and goofs Halloween special and pay witness to the hosts' uncontrollable spiral into Winchester-related despair.





	14.04: Knock-Off Zachary Quinto

**Author's Note:**

> Complete transcript of (No) Chick Flick Moment's 14.04: Knock-Off Zachary Quinto
> 
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> Come join us!

Remmy: Hello everybody! Welcome to (No) Chick Flick Moments! Hiiiii.

Bea: Hello.

Remmy: I am your co-host Remmy.

Bea: And I am your other co-host, Bea.

Remmy: The episode that we're going to be talking about today is Supernatural Season 14, Episode 4: Mint Condition.

Bea: Mhmm.

Remmy: It was written by Davy Perez and directed by Amyn Kaderali. The description reads: _Dean continues to struggle. Meanwhile, Sam must think fast when action figures come to life, and our heroes find themselves living in a real-life horror movie._

Bea: Perfectly timed for the season. Perfectly timed inside the show.

Remmy: [laughs] On that description, just one thought: hello, it's the Winchesters! Their whole life is a horror movie!

Bea: Mhmm!

Remmy: This ain't new!

Bea: We get to hear Sam pretty much say that.

Remmy: Uh huh. Yeah, c’mon Bea, take us away!

Bea: Yeah, so we start right off inside of a comic shop, where we're seeing a bunch of promotional material for the comics. We're also seeing a lot of horror material, like Friday the 13th. There's a poster for Hellhazers, which calls back to Season 2, and on the television there's All Saints' Day playing. And this item — This product is going to be placed significantly throughout this episode.

Remmy: All Saints' Day as a franchise, right?

Bea: Yes. A good ol’ horror movie franchise in the universe of Supernatural.

Remmy: Mhmm. 

Bea: And so this promo gets turned off from the television, and the guy who is working in the comic shop is unboxing merchandise. He sees this one item, a ThunderCats [Panthro] figure. He basically digs it out and puts it straight into his backpack. He gets a call from his coworker, and she’s kind of upset at his handling for a customer that had come in earlier, and he's really adamant about his position. She's kind of understanding, like, “Okay, I know that this is you, but also don't do that to the customers. We need them.”

Remmy: He's being established as the problem child here, for sure.

Bea: Yes. He's very passionate about the subject matter, and probably takes it past social cues.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: So, he grabs a key set with Batman as the symbol on the keychain. We also see the All Saints' Day killer, the David Yaeger figure.

Remmy: Yeah, the big stand up, uh…

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: What would you call it?

Bea: Life-sized model.

Remmy: Life-sized model, yes. Exactly.

Bea: Yeah. And so it cuts to now Stuart, The Comic Book Guy — 

Remmy: The Zachary Quinto look-alike.

Bea: Oh, don’t even.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: But, okay! We cut now to the Comic Book Guy, Stuart. He's in his basement and he's yelling on the phone about his pizza coming late. And as he's on this little tirade, the boxed figure of Panthro moves.

Remmy: His face in that moment was so awe and wonder, like, he says, “Oh...how’d you get there?” and it was so, like… Indians in the Cupboard to me.

Bea: Yeah, he was super excited by the prospect. Like, hey, maybe it actually _can_ move?

Remmy: Uh huh! But, unfortunately, when it _does_ move, it wasn't exactly Indians in the Cupboard friendly.

Bea: No. No, it really wasn't friendly at all. It goes straight for _all over_ his body. He gets beat up pretty fast, there.

Remmy: Yeah, he gets attacked by this Panthro.

Bea: And, okay, you went Indians in the Cupboard, but I went Small Soldiers. Which, I don't know if like —

Remmy: Yuuup.

Bea: — anybody remembers that movie but…

Remmy: I f****** love that movie, I own that movie on VHS! Yeah, I did!

Bea: Yep, yep, yep! So, that was right where my brain went, was poor ol’ Tommy Lee Jones. [laughs]

Remmy: I used to have nightmares about that f*****!

Bea: Ugh, yeah. Woof.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: Only ‘90s kids will know.

Remmy: Only ‘90s kids will know… 

Bea: So, yeah, [Stuart] gets attacked in a pretty rude fashion, and — 

Remmy: [laughs] Rude!

Bea: — we cut to… 

Remmy: Sorry, sorry. 

Bea: [laughs] There's probably better ways I could put that.

Remmy: Eh, no, I like that one.

Bea: But we cut over now [to] Dean. We're at Dean's room.

Remmy: Mhmmmm. 

Bea: And he’s lounged out, and… I described it as Dean's filthy, camped-in room.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: Where he's marathoning Margiekugels and horror flicks on the Shocker Channel.

Remmy: Yeah, yeah. He's got the ‘Send Noods’ novelty socks on.

Bea: Yesss.

Remmy: He's got pizza, empty pizza boxes, and chip bags, and empty six packs of beer, and an entire handle of whiskey empty on his bedside table.

Bea: Mhmm. And on the shelf behind him all the books are knocked over, and there’s even like, a bottle stacked on top of them, and — 

Remmy: Oh, Dean.

Bea: Chinese food, metal takeout things.

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: This boy’s been livin’.

Remmy: [laughs] But, but he's — Like you said, he's lounged out… [But], okay, as much as he's obviously been hiding in his room, and the description says, ‘Dean continues to struggle’ to cope with all that's happening, now.

Bea: Mhmm.

Remmy: But, he… I don't know! He…

Bea: He seems happy.

Remmy: He seems _happy,_ and this moment ties in very strongly with my feels of what he says about his ‘escape’ into TV, and why he appreciates — 

Bea: Yes, yes.

Remmy: — media so much. You know, he's having a hard time, but he's kind of like… (and he's living in filth), but I still wanna say he's doing right by Dean.

Bea: Yeah, he's found something that he can throw himself into and enjoy. And he's just on his stomach cuddling a pillow, eating cold pizza and loving all these slasher movies. I mean, it's right before Halloween — Or it _is_ Halloween, depending on how he want to consider map travel for them, but yeah, he's trying to do his own version of self-care, I guess. [laughs] 

Remmy: Yeah! Yeah.

Bea: And then Sam's kind of aware of what this is, but I don't think Sam really approves.

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah, Sam comes in and he's looking at Dean, and looking at the TV, and he's like, “Uh...what’cha doin’?” and Dean says, “Slasher marathon on Shocker! Just finished the Halloween movies and we're going in on All Saints' Day.” And my first thought there was, okay, so you live in a universe that has _both_ Halloween _and_ All Saints' Day movies? When All Saints' Day is a blatant Halloween rip off?? So, it's like — 

Bea: Mhmmmm. 

Remmy: Where’s that crossover movie? Where Freddie — Not Freddie, where Michael Myers and Yaeger meet at the Midnight Hour of Halloween into All Saints' Day? 

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: Come on! And Sam says, “Aw, c’mon, those movies are crap,” …I dunno [exactly] what he says but, Dean says, “Yeah, marathoning,” and then [Dean] finally kind of looks over, after he explains, and he looks over to Sam and he stops, and he does a little double-take, and he’s — 

Bea: Mhmm.

Remmy: Like you said, he rises to the bait. He says, “Oh man…” and Sam says, “...What?” and…

Bea: Yeah, like, “Is there something on my face?”

Remmy: [laughs] Dean just, gestures to his whole face and Sam's just, “Oh, f*** off.”

Bea: Yeah. “This again, you can't give it up.”

Remmy: “Yeah yeah yeah. I shaved it off.” and then we get the “So smooth…” ‘Smooth as a dolphin's belly’ line, it was good. 

Bea: [laughs] Ah, Jensen gets so much time to really stretch his comedic chops this episode. I really like that.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Like, Sam is now letting us know: okay, so Dean hasn't left his room in a week, and that basically being okay is not part of the job. Is what they basically settle on, here. “Are you okay?” and, “No, ‘okay’ is not a thing that we do.” 

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And Dean gives us insight into the fact that they haven't had any leads on where Michael is or what he's doing. They don't have any idea where the spear is right now, and now Cas and Jack are out of the bunker. Cas is… I assume he's following through on his promise to go on a case, just him and Jack.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Go be hunters together. And so Dean is really feeling like there's not even any straws for him to grasp at. And so he's just going to retreat.

Remmy: Yeah, Dean says basically, “Hell, if not this then what else am I going to do?”

Bea: Yeah. And, “Not that I'm complaining, but the house is full of strangers.”

Remmy: Right, right. Sam is on him, “Why are you holed up in your room?” and Dean… In my mind, it's that Dean is feeling that [his room] is literally the only place he _can_ be. His home is…

Bea: Overrun.

Remmy: Overrun, _and_ he's not making an effort to adjust to that in any way.

Bea: Yeah, I imagine it's one hell of an adjustment curve if he's going to try this. Because for so long in his life it's been him and Sam just working things out together, coming up with the plan together, and that's as far as your sounding board goes. And now he returns to a bunker that is just populated with hunters, and Sam seems to be the connective tissue between all of them

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Like, he… Dean pokes fun at it later in the episode, calling [Sam] ‘chief’, and… You and I have spoken about this at the time of the episode airing, but watching it again it's like, Dean must almost feel like he's this vestibule part of Sam's life. Sam went and formed this hunter network, and now [Dean’s] just [struggling] to fit into this, because Sam's clearly got things covered.

Remmy: Yeah, and I think that it's more about Dean and Sam than it is even about Dean and the other hunters.

Bea: Mhmm. 

Remmy: It's just that Sam has integrated himself into this community of people that Dean has no part of. And for all that, y’know, they're all hunters, it really has always been Sam and Dean against the world.

Bea: Yeah, and I feel like Dean has a harder time connecting with people deeply. He's very good at a superficial connection, he has the charisma to work with people, but to actually let people in and [become] a closer aspect of his life, he’s really resistant to that. I think that he has this history built up where the people that are close to him get hurt, and so he’s just become practiced at not letting people close. So now, here we are with a bunch of hunters that Sam knows all by name and they all respect him and treat him as, just, someone that they'll listen to. And now Dean is… I mean, no one’s sitting there being like, ‘Dean you can't talk to anyone.’ Dean is choosing not to engage. And I think that it could just be, [in] part, that there's so many people and it would be overwhelming, and Dean doesn't really _want_ to let them in.

Remmy: Oh, man. And, last thought on this… I have so many thoughts on this, but last thought on this — 

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: [laughs] Because I'm beating it into the dirt, but, Dean… I have a lot of feels about Dean and his relationships, and I'm gonna have a lot of feels later in this episode too, on Dean and his relationships.

Bea: Yep.

Remmy: But you hit the nail on the head when you say he's good at superficial [relationships]; he's charming, he's good at superficial connections, but he's not good at friends. Or… he _is_ good at friends, but he doesn't _make_ friends. I think he's just very…

Bea: He's not well suited to shallow friendships. He wants deep connections.

Remmy: Not many people would call Dean an introvert, but… I think I would be one of them, honestly. He… [sighs] Maybe introvert’s the wrong word.

Bea: He's just — I feel he's very protective of those he considers family, and there are these layers of socialisation that he will let people in on only so far. So, he will be very defensive about the [closest] circles to himself. Not many people go through that vetting process and find their way in. And it could also be, like, they have to _prove_ themselves to [get] in, and I just don't think that Dean even wants to open the vetting process at this point.

Remmy: It’s just, like, _blasting_ me to 2003. When Sam would have been in college, and thriving.

Bea: Mhmm. yes. 

Remmy: And Dean would have been this loner drifter, who just had his car and sometimes his dad.

Bea: And he didn't want to do it alone.

Remmy: And it's just that Sam has always been able to build something for himself, and find happiness in whatever's around him.

Bea: Yeah. Sam's been more adaptable in the social grounds.

Remmy: Yes.

Bea: He’s been able to be flexible with the roles that he plays in society, you know? He doesn't want to be a hunter, he's going to go be a student. And he's gonna try and take these parts of the normal life he can get. But for Dean, it really feels like he was really grown up — He was really trained from a young age to be this one form. To fit this one mold, and it became so intrinsic in his nature to follow it that it’s very difficult for him to adapt to these other situations in a way that’s longstanding.

Remmy: Yeah. He has always been Dean Winchester: brother of Sam Winchester and son of John Winchester. And that’s what he is, and you can't put him with Lisa in the suburbs, and you can't put him in a network of hunters who work together to accomplish things. And, I don't know… 

Bea: Yeah. They're all just busy bees in there, and I think that Dean, when he doesn't know, he falls back on those instincts. And those instincts are ‘protect the ones you love’, and the more people he loves the harder that's going to be, and so he only has a few that he lets in that far.

Remmy: Oh, man. That was ten minutes of incomprehensible Dean feels, but… [laughs]

Bea: I'll introduce you to _20 minutes_ of incomprehensible… 

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: It’s, it’s coming. I'm so sorry, Remmy. 

Remmy: It's okay! It's okay. This episode just has my head turned around.

Bea: Yes!

Remmy: In such a big way.

Bea: This episode. I know, like, there's nothing about it really that is telling us to be retrospective, and telling us to look at [Sam and Dean’s] childhoods and things. And yet there’s a lot of subtext that’s carried around a traditional holiday. So here we have Halloween, and the brothers’ relationship with this time of the year; and then, not only that but, just the whole… Maybe I'm just bringing _my_ nostalgia in here. 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: But when you're thinking about, like, ‘80s slasher movies; and for Supernatural this is going to be a knockoff version of an ‘80s slasher movie series so… Oh my god, yeah, I could get into… You wouldn't see “Halloween” repeating on Motel TVs, you would see the knockoff version of it. So “All Saints' Day” is going to be the thing that, if Dean was home alone because his dad's out doing hunting duties, and Sam doesn't want to watch the movie, then here is Dean, just held within the grasp of the motel TV watching these knock-off brands and… [sighs]

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: Again, I — I'm going _ridiculously_ off on this tangent of — 

Remmy: We're in the _first scenes._

Bea: Haaaaaahhhh, Jesus… 

Remmy: I knowww.

Bea: Jeezy Creezy.

Remmy: This episode… 

Bea: It f***** me up!

Remmy: This episode was like, a f****** comedy! It — 

Bea: Yes!

Remmy: It was a comedy! It was hilarious through and through!

Bea: It was!

Remmy: And here I am, sitting here in front of the mic, and I feel like I'm just, going into some sort of wild Supernatural existential crisis!

Bea: Yes! Do you see? This is why when we started airing, when we started talking I was like: [defeated] “Hi…Remmy…” 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: You were like, “What happened to you??” and I'm, I guess I'm just _emotionally shell shocked_ from the _nothing_ that I saw on screen. Just what my brain is doing to me. 

Remmy: [continues laughing]

Bea: It’s… I’m so sorry… 

Remmy: So, so Sam shows Dean — or Sam mentions to Dean that he picked up on a case. And he was wondering if maybe it would interest Dean. And of course Sam's face the whole time he's like, oh, I _know_ this is gonna — 

Bea: Oh yeah.

Remmy: He's just _waiting_ for it.

Bea: He's coming in like a parent: “Oh, you know… You've been in your room an awful lot lately here, son,” and “I got these two tickets to the ball game and I don't know who's gonna come with me…” It's just very much that kind of move, like, maybe I'll give this case to somebody else…

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: Wait wait wait, it includes action figures? Show me the YouTube video.

Remmy: Uh huh. And Sam shows — Sam mentions, uh… 

Bea: A killer toy!

Remmy: Yeah, Sam mentions a killer toy case, and Dean's ears prick up. And of course, it's exactly what Sam expected.

Bea: _Yes._

Remmy: You could see the smugness in [Sam] in this moment.

Bea: Yes. Dean just lights up like, ThunderCats?? It was ThunderCats?

Remmy: Yeah. We see the YouTube video of, uh… Zachary Quinto.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: What's his f****** name.

Bea: Stuart!

Remmy: Stuart! Of Stuart, we see the YouTube video of Stuart talking about his encounter with Panthro.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And how Panthro just wailed on him.

Bea: I like the little details of this YouTube video, here. Because if you look above it, it's like he's only had 24 views, but there's 20 comments on it. He's causing a lot of controversy. [laughs] 

Remmy: Uh huh. Yeah, I — I am definitely going to need you to tell me about what is in those YouTube comments later. When Sam pulls them up.

Bea: Mmm.

Remmy: ‘Cause I didn't look at them, but I was curious to know if there was anything interesting in those comments.

Bea: Yeah, yeah. So Sam's cheesing, he's like, “Oh, you know, you're so busy…” 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: “I'll get someone else to work on this.” And Deans like, no! Panthro’s mine.

Remmy: Yeah. Let's go!

Bea: So, mission successful for Sam. We've got Dean out of the room.

Remmy: And one little additional Dean moment: can you imagine kid Dean watching ThunderCats? Like, I didn't even know this is a thing that would hit me so hard. Freaking Dean just, lighting up at ThunderCats. “Oh my god, ThunderCats? Are you f****** kidding me? Hell yeah!”

Bea: Yeah, and again, I'm sitting here with hollowed-out eyes being like, I'm having some amount of feelings about things that _weren't even on the f****** screen._ I did not expect this episode to f****** up!!

Remmy: It really — Oh man. You dragged me into it too, Bea! 

Bea: Yeah, don't worry, I'm not letting you out.

Remmy: [distressed noises]

Bea: But, yeah, so we — Dean’s on board, so they head out on the road. And we’re brought up to the exterior of this comic book shop. It's called Smash Pow Comics, which I'm like: “My god…”

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: There's trick-or-treaters up and down the street, but it's still early enough in the day that there’s still business to attend to. And Dean is already speculating, like, “Is it just one toy, or is it a whole bunch of them? Do we have a puppet master situation going on?” And Sam's like, “Oh my god, you almost sound excited about this.”

Remmy: Hell yeah, he's excited about this!

Bea: [laughs] 

Remmy: And, oh my god, so we have Sam and Dean walking down the street outside of this comic shop, and the only thought in my mind is: _pocket protectorrrr_.

Bea: Oh my gosh, their outfits. Oh… 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: I had to stop, because I was like, okay, where's — What is Dean's outfit?? What is it pinging in my brain, what memory, and I'm like, it goes back to Chris Farley and his SNL skit where he plays, basically, the ‘stay in school’ type dude. Like, that’s — that's the outfit that’s harkening back to. And I'm, oh my god, this is so glorious. There are so many little Easter eggs in this episode.

Remmy: It was just instantly, ohmygod nerd clothes. But then I couldn't, at first, kind of put my finger on even what was just so ‘nerd clothes’ [about it]. Because Dean wasn't wearing the glasses, he was just wearing a white shirt, a tie and those pants. Though that's something, but… 

Bea: That jacket, too. That was a busy jacket.

Remmy: Well, he wasn't wearing the jacket yet but — 

Bea: Oh s***, you're right.

Remmy: But they're both just walking down the street, and I took me a full 30 seconds to realize like, why is this different from their FBI clothes? And it was the _short sleeves._

Bea: Ohhh, yeah.

Remmy: On their shirtsleeves, yeah. It was just the shirt sleeves. Sam's got a pocket protector, Dean's got the pants… 

Bea: That pocket protector. I'm like, do they still exist? I don't know…

Remmy: I’m already grinning, so.

Bea: Oh yeah. You saw that, and you're like: oh my god, we're in for a treat.

Remmy: Yesss. And they go in.

Bea: Yes, and now — Again, we have so many Easter eggs inside of here. We have the Jason Todd outfit in the corner, and then behind it is a House of Wax poster. And there's the Friday the 13th figures, all of these little things that are knick-knacks around that are — If you're paying attention to the background then you get to have a lot of little delights. And Dean immediately starts teasing Sam that the girl who's working here is basically his twin. You know, like they both have great hair… 

Remmy: The plaid.

Bea: There's this great little visual gag where they both brush their hair back at the same time.

Remmy: Uh huh. And Sam's like, “I don't know what you're talkin’ about.” 

Bea: Mhmm.

Remmy: But then Sam pulls the same thing on Dean. He says, “Oh, okay, well if I'm _her_ then _that_ guy over there...” A guy we see that's rifling through the individual comic issues, and he's just, you know, your typical comic nerd looking kind of guy.

Bea: Yep.

Remmy: Average Joe, and Dean looks over to him and he's like, “What, that guy? No way, we have _nothing_ in common.”

Bea: Meanwhile, the both of them have lollipops, they both have sort of the same gruff behavior. I — I shouldn't say gruff, but just like, a little defensive, I guess I would say. And again, I'm going to write a High School essay on my feelings about these two characters vs Sam and Dean later. It’s going to be incoherent… 

Remmy: [laughs] Well, I actually meant to ask you at the top of the episode, because I know that _so much_ meta came out of the Sam[amtha], Dirk, and…

Bea: Oh, did it?

Remmy: I can _not_ remember his name, what's his name.

Bea: Stuart?

Remmy: Stuart! Okay, I have got to sear that into my mind. I need to write it down in big bold letters… 

Bea: You can continue to say knock-off Zachary Quinto.

Remmy: Knock-off Zachary Quinto. [laughs] So, I know there was so much meta that came out of this episode on the Samantha, Dirk, Stuart parallels with Dean, Cas, and Sam. Well, not in that order. Sam, Dean, and Cas.

Bea: So, tell me what you remember of that. Because I don't remember seeing any meta about this.

Remmy: Well, we’re right here, explicitly within the narrative, told to draw those parallels.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: We're like, okay... keep an eye on these two, because these are the mirrors to Sam and Dean throughout the whole episode. And what I remember coming out of, y’know, coming off of this episode last year, it was that everyone was… Okay, so we have Sam and Dean mirrored to Samantha and Dirk, but then — Oh, I didn't even realize until just now that ‘Dirk,’ ‘Dean.’ All right, I get it.

Bea: Yep! 

Remmy: But then Stuart, people extended that [mirror] to Stuart and Cas.

Bea: How does that work?

Remmy: There was a lot… I think that you don't like Stuart! I think there's some — I'm getting an under-vibe of ‘this guy is not my guy.’

Bea: Yeah…

Remmy: Which I get, but people were… Y’know, he had the tan coat on in the first scene, there's some visual cues there. I don't actually necessarily agree with extending this metaphor, but a lot of people did. What people focused on a lot was the socially awkward angle. The best friend to Dirk. How he's not… y’know, ‘he makes mistakes but we love him anyways.’ I don't know, I didn't… 

Bea: I just can't click with the whole ‘impassionately angry that things aren't going the way that he expects’ [vibe]. There’s this very toxic energy around the way he behaves with his interests, and with other people's relationship with his interests, and these sorts of things I'm like, okay… 

Remmy: I have no time for it.

Bea: Yeah. If you're trying to give me an allusion to Cas with that, I can't pick it up. I see no connect-the-dots there.

Remmy: I agree. I — [laughs] I may have sounded a little accusatory when I said ‘oh, you just don't like Stuart!’ But I'm, I'm with you there a little bit, yeah.

Bea: I'll tell you why I don't like Stuart, but I don't think that… I try not to spend a lot of time on the negative things —

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: — but I can just say, like… I wasn't a fan of a lot of the things that… the way that his character behaves would represent in the real world. You know, it's one thing for the narrative to be, ‘he's got his quirks and we love him,’ and it's another thing to have that person in your life. And being like, this is the energy that I'm surrounded by.

Remmy: Yeah, super toxic and constantly toxic… Yeah, I don't think that we’re invited to like him.

Bea: Yeah. So again, if I'm gonna tell you my High School essay later, I'm not going to be saying Stuart is anywhere near Cas. I would say it's more a metaphor for the situation at the bunker, or something like that.

Remmy: Yeah, I wouldn't even — I would just exclude Stuart entirely. I mean, he was just the… He was the problem child.

Bea: Oh my god, when I bring out my John essay later… 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: I'll have something else entirely for Stuart to represent right there.

Remmy: Alright.

Bea: F*** me…

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: It's such a good, _happy_ episode! It's a good, fun episode, and then I'm just sitting here, like, chain smoking cigarettes… looking haggard… I'm so sorry… 

Remmy: No, it's hilarious. I think it's fun. I mean… Well, I'm sorry, I don't think your suffering is fun, I just like to hear — 

Bea: [laughs] I'm happy to share it, it's just ridiculous.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: I — I also like the little Easter egg that they dropped of Dean and Sam referring to their fake insurance company as Campbell and Sons Insurance.

Remmy: Awwww, I didn't even catch that!

Bea: Mhmm. And so, the reason why they're at the comic shop is that they went by where Stuart lives, and he's not there. And after speaking to Samantha they discover that he's been kicked out because of an argument that Stuart had with his roommate over Fist of the North Star. And this is about when Samantha says: “You know, he's an acquired taste, but when he's online he's basically a troll.”

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: So Dean and Sam are reading this, like: okay, so maybe he doesn't have friends. Maybe he even has enemies that would want to put spell work on him. That's kind of the way they’re leaning for the theory of this case right now. But Samantha advises them that they can find Stuart at his mom's house. And so we cut over right away to _at_ Stuart's mother's house, and she’s giving them cider in… [laughs] Adorable novelty mugs.

Remmy: Uh huhhh.

Bea: Of Flash's head, and then a quasi-normal mug, and Dean's sitting there with his f****** horn-rimmed glasses.

Remmy: The glasses… I'm just like, why?! Why? Dean, what is going through your head? Why?? I love it, but — !

Bea: It's the Chris Farley thing, I'm telling you.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: It's going back to that, yeah. He's got the jacket on at this point.

Remmy: Oh, god…

Bea: And the sort-of-regular mug is nearer to him, he's like, “None of that s***, I want the Flash mug.”

Remmy: Uh huhhh.

Bea: Switches them out.

Remmy: He grabs it.

Bea: So they're waiting for Stuart to come up, and Stuart is downstairs yelling about Fortnite. Sam has to fill Dean in on what that is, and again Dean is going to, I'm assuming, this nostalgic place. Being like, “Oh, I'm more of a Zelda guy, y’know…” 

Remmy: “Zelda for life.”

Bea: Yeah, yes.

Remmy: Which I, again, I'm like, did you even have a Game Boy? What is — What is my life?? What is this??

Bea: Was it just, you went to your friend's place, were you able to borrow it?? Or you got to play it for a brief minute and it's stuck in your brain for so long?

Remmy: [groaning] Oh my god. No, no… 

Bea: [sing-song] Meeemories.

Remmy: When Stuart said Fortnite, I had not a single thought in my head other than the Supernatural writers and the “hello, fellow kids!” meme.

Bea: Yeah. I was the Steve Carell “no! No!!”

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: As soon as I hear Fortnite — Again, I'm on that cusp where I'm like, I'm too old to understand, but I understand that I'm too old now, and I just like that fact! Basically just ranting out at clouds, you know. But, yeah, so Fortnite's in the show… And [Sam and Dean] go, “Okay, so what's that smell in the air?” Sam and Dean are kind of picking up, is that sage? And Stuart’s like, [imitating Stuart] “Yeah, my girlfriend, she was super goth, but, you know…” [drops imitation] Ugh, I can’t even do it.

Remmy: Kinda Wicca.

Bea: I can't do the bro voice, it's gonna give me a migraine.

Remmy: I’ll — I’ll take it over.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: So — [laughs] So Stuart says, “Yeah, my girlfriend’s real into Wicca. And I'm sure it's nothing, but she said burn sage to ward off spirits or for good luck, y’know…” 

Bea: Yeah, “good luck or something.”

Remmy: “Yeah, whatever…” And [Sam and Dean] are like, oh, Wiccan girlfriend, maybe there's a witchy thing.

Bea: Mhmm. There's suspicions raised, there.

Remmy: And they say, “Oh, you still with her?” and he says, “No no no, I broke it off before we could MIRL.” And Dean is just like, what the f***?? And Sam's: “Meet in real life.”

Bea: Sam continues to Urban Dictionary Dean's life for him.

Remmy: Uh huh. And this time Dean does call [Sam] out on it, like, “What — Why would you even _know that?_ ” Sam’s face in that moment, though, I did love it. Like: “You don't — You don't wanna know.”

Bea: [laughs] Yeah. I'm like, maybe Sam has tried having online friends, y’know? Again, we go back to the whole, talking about socialization. I can see Sam being someone who's a bit more open, like… And I also happen to think of Eileen at this, too. That they would be communicating over the phone. 

Remmy: Yeah… 

Bea: And over the internet. Keeping a long-distance friendship alive that way. And, oh, Sam feels coming up the wazoo again.

Remmy: Oh my gosh… So, so they learn that maybe this Wiccan girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, might — They figure, hey, she was dumped pretty callously by this guy… 

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: I've known him for 5 minutes and I can already infer that she was dumped — If she was dumped, it would have been pretty callously.

Bea: Yes, and when they start interrogating Stuart about the accident Stuart starts babbley lying. Saying, “Oh, I fell.” And Dean’s like, “Yeah, on your face, on your legs, on your genitals??”

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: “That's quite the hell of a fall, there.” And Stuart is just very defensive the whole way through, and [Sam and Dean] basically get kicked out.

Remmy: Yup. And we have fashionista Dean putting on his jacket, and soccer dad Sam with his little puffy brown number.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: I have no idea what the f*** that was, but it was _so_ — I wanna take that shot and _frame it._

Bea: There were — It was good looks. It was good looks this episode.

Remmy: I know! I know… 

Bea: They were serving, this scene.

Remmy: And they say, okay. Dean says Wicca, Sam says, “Y’know, Wiccan doesn't always mean witch.” And Dean says, “Until it does!”

Bea: It's the whole, ‘60% of the time it works every time.’

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: It's not a witch until it is a witch.

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: We got some good statistics going on, here.

Remmy: So they're going to stake out the house until it's clear and they can check for hex bags.

Bea: Yeah. So they're just sitting in the car right now, and Sam fields a call from somebody, and by the time he finishes up he explains to Dean, like, “Oh, that was just Riley.” And Dean says, “Well, whoever Riley is…” 

Remmy: Yeah. Again, we see that not only is Dean… Dean has not made any effort whatsoever to even try to adapt, I would say.

Bea: Yeah, he's not interested in introducing these people to his life.

Remmy: Right. He doesn't even say, “Oh, who's Riley? What is he working on?” He just says, “Oh, well, whoever. Cool.” Like, the name is instantly forced from his mind, by deliberate choice. He does not want to engage, here.

Bea: Yeah. He's just like, whomst?

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: And Dean takes this as a chance to also ask Sam about why he doesn't like Halloween. Y’know, [we] kinda brushed on it earlier outside of the comic book shop, when the trick-or-treaters were walking by, but Sam is just refusing to answer why he doesn't like Halloween.

Remmy: Yep.

Bea: And I do like this little moment, where they're in the car and they see Stuart's mother leave the house. And they're like, “Well, we gotta hide somehow!” You can just see the thought going through — 

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: And they just look at each other, and the most stiff, awkward dive down into the seat. Of both of them just, Leaning Tower of Pisa-ing their way into the bench seat.

Remmy: We've all seen it gif’d. It was a beautiful moment.

Bea: Yes! And considering it was — Wasn't it just them spoofing? And then it's like, oh. Oh, that made it into the final cut. Whoops.

Remmy: Uh huh! This whole episode was so comedic. Like you said, they really got to have fun with it this episode.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: Yeah, they got to stretch their comedic legs so well this episode. And it just makes me so sad to think, oh, I'm going to have to wait until Episode 15! For the Pleasantville episode… uh, Peace of Mind.

Bea: Mhmmmm.

Remmy: To, to get —

Bea: To see them doing this kind of nonsense again.

Remmy: It's so good, though. And I love when we do it.

Bea: Yeah. Anytime the characters get the chance to revel — and I say the characters, but I really mean the actors — whenever they get a chance to revel in their scenes, you experience the joy there, too.

Remmy: It's soooo fun. They bring so much fun into the episode. And it really is the actors that do it.

Bea: Oh, and — So, this is also the scene where Sam is looking up — He says that Stuart's story changed because he was getting nasty comments online, and he pulls up, like, a Reddit page that’s just a bunch of people talking at each other.

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: And Dean’s like, “Oh yeah, that's what it is about the internet: everyone can be a dick.” And… Dean's relationship with the internet continues to be a curious one.

Remmy: Uh huh. And we don't get a lot of insight on it, but… 

Bea: Yeah. Again, he plays… he holds his cards close to his chest.

Remmy: Yeah. And this is the moment when I was, ‘okay Bea, you gotta tell me, was there anything interesting on those quote-unquote YouTube comments?’ Because, I mean, it was obviously Reddit page, but… 

Bea: I can't even tell you. And it's because I was sitting there with, like, “Hello darkness, my old friend —”

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: — playing inside of my head. I'm just… Little Dean would have been sitting in front of the motel television… with crackly static… waiting for his dad to come home… Keeping his eyes open as long as he could, watching whatever shity movie was on TV and embedding it into his memory… 

Remmy: Bea… Don't do this to me… 

Bea: So. I wasn't looking at the Reddit page… I'm sorry… 

Remmy: Don't — Don't do this to me. 

Bea: [laughs] 

Remmy: Oh my god… 

Bea: Again, [sing-song] hello darkness my old friend.

Remmy: We — They — We go to the hospital! Oh, oh no!

Bea: No!

Remmy: No no no! I'm jumping ahead!

Bea: Stuart stumbles out bleeding.

Remmy: Yes.

Bea: And he's just hollerin’, “Somebody help!” And, to be fair, if I was attacked by a floating chainsaw I would be saying a lot worse things than, like, ‘help me!’

Remmy: Yes. He's clutching his side, he’s very obviously injured. Sam and Dean jump to action, and Sam does his best to stabilize Stuart while Dean goes to see what the f*** is up. 

Bea: Dean heads inside with his gun out, and he follows the blood trail that Stuart left. It goes down into Stuart's room, and we can see a Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster up against the wall. And when Dean turns around there’s a chainsaw, floating, and it's revving. It flies straight at him and it embeds itself in the wall.

Remmy: Yep.

Bea: I just wrote down, ‘whoa!’

Remmy: Yeah! Yeah, that's exactly what Dean’s face was doing: whoa! That's not witchcraft. 

Bea: So we— After Dean's little whoa!, we go to the ER. Stuart is in bed with his mother beside him, and she's thanking Sam and Dean for being there. She wants to go home and bring Stuart some of his things, but Sam and Dean convince her that, “You know, it's better to stay here. Just in case he wakes up.” Like, keep away from the house basically. 

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And we get this cute little comedic moment where Dean’s like, “Everything's fine!” and then we cut to the next scene, Dean's like, “Everything is _not_ fine.”

Remmy: [laughs] Yes, yes.

Bea: And so Dean has looked through the house, there's no hex bags there. But when he brought out the EMF, it’s just spiking all across the chart. So now the question becomes, why would there be a spirit after Stuart?

Remmy: And Sam says, “Well, you stay here. You guard Stuart, make sure the mom doesn't go anywhere, I'll go try to figure it out.”

Bea: Yeah. Sam's gonna sweep the house, he's gonna look at the neighborhood. He's gonna try to get answers to see if someone has died recently in Stuart's life. So we follow Sam — Oh, oh yeah, and Dean tosses his keys to Sam and Sam catches them, and I like anytime the keys are up in the air and passing between them.

Remmy: Yeah, it's always — Jensen and Jared just work so well together, and they're so…

Bea: There's such a history there. 

Remmy: Yeah. It's just, the dynamic between them is always on point, it's always so fun to watch.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: So the keys in the air moment was one of those moments for me. It's like, awwww, guys…

Bea: Yes. Just a casual reminder of the familiarity at stake.

Remmy: Yep.

Bea: And so then we follow Sam back to Stuart's. Sam tries to turn on the light, but there's no dice there so he pulls out a flashlight and starts looking around. He's spooked by the Panthro figure that he sees, there.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: Almost expecting it to do what Stuart had said it had done, earlier in his video. But then Sam almost mocks himself for being scared.

Remmy: Being scared of a foot-tall toy.

Bea: Yes. But at any rate, there's no EMF in the place, [and] it becomes a growing puzzle. But when Sam's looking around he can see a picture that has Stuart, Samantha, Dirk, and now this _fourth_ figure. This older gentleman in the photo that they haven't yet met, so he has a new lead.

Remmy: Yeah, and we go back to the hospital.

Bea: Yeah. So when we get back to the hospital, Dirk is standing outside of Stuart's room and Dean approaches. He just got some snacks, and he offers one to Dirk, and they stand there having a quick chat. And I liked the little, like, Dirk looking at Dean going, “Oh, Stuart must have _awesome_ insurance.”

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: If you're still here. [laughs] 

Remmy: Yeah, yeah. 'Cause Dirk’s like, “What are you even doing here?” and Dean says, “Aw, just looking after Stuart…” Dirk’s like… nice.

Bea: Mhmm. And, okay, so if Dean was supposed to be looking after the mom, he comes back and Dirk’s like, “Yeah, Stuart's mom just went out for food.” I'm like, Dean, you coulda lost her right there!

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: She could have gone straight back to the house. But, anyways… 

Remmy: So, at the beginning of the episode, we had Dean looking to Dirk and saying, “Oh, I have _nothing_ in common with that guy.” But this is where we're, no, this is definitely… You have more in common with Dirk than you think.

Bea: Yes. I would almost bring it back to… 'Cause again, we spoke earlier that Dean doesn't really let people in easily, and he can bond superficially but it's not often that he lets someone in. And yet, he does with Dirk. Y’know, they bond over movies.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And I think it comes back to the fact that Dirk took the moment to explain why he was loyal to Stuart. And saying that, y’know, Dirk didn't have — Or I should say _doesn't_ have that great a relationship with his dad. And any time that that went to a particularly sour degree, then Dirk would just show up at Stuart’s house and, no questions asked, he could just stay there. And it was this oasis place for [Dirk] to get away from his troubles.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And I think it was really in that story that Dean maybe felt empathy, or that that was the thing that softened him to Dirk. This loyalty to someone that maybe you could see as being a difficult figure… Like, difficult socially, and yet you’ll remain loyal to them. Dean likes that in a person, and so Dirk became someone that he was going to bond with when they shared this interest in the All Saints' Day marathon that was going on on the Shocker Channel.

Remmy: Yeah. They're both still standing in the doorway, and once Dirk shared his story, opened up a little bit to Dean, you can literally see Dean bodily opening up to Dirk. 

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: He angles more towards [Dirk]; like I said, they're both in the doorway, but Dean opens up a little bit, [both] in his body language and with this… We start talking about the All Saints' Day Marathon going on. Dirk and Dean are talking about their favorite All Saints' Day movies and their favorite moments, and Dean is just, _so_ enthusiastic in his interests.

Bea: Yeah, he — He's not able to share these types of things with Sam, because Sam has shown a distaste for horror, Halloween, all these things. And yet here is Dirk, with kind of the same level of sardonic humor as [Dean], like, “Oh man, a chainsaw attack. Yeah, Happy Halloween.” They have this sort of commiserative humor with each other, and now they have this mutual interest that Dean can open up to. That he doesn't really have anyone else that would get it.

Remmy: And we say that Dean is very superficial in his charm and how he interacts with people on the day-to-day, but when Dean… Like you said, when someone gets past that wall, or when Dean puts that little checkmark of approval in his mind, like, this is someone who — this is someone that I can connect to, in whatever way he's decided he can connect to them, he just… [sighs]

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: This is where _I_ get — This conversation with Dirk is where every single Dean feel I've ever had just wells to the surface.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: And I — I pause the show and I'm staring at the wall next to the TV, and I'm just like… Let Dean have more friends… Let Dean have more friends!

Bea: Mm… Oh, yeah… 

Remmy: He's just so _animated_ , so exuberant.

Bea: He is very — He's a very loving person, and yet he's very afraid of having too many people to love.

Remmy: Oh my gosh… 

Bea: But yeah, you talk about them comparing which of the [movies is their favorite], and Dean kind of does an odd pick, he says All Saints' Day 4. And that gets him a little bit of kudos with Dirk, and it's at this moment that Dean reveals why he likes horror movies. And it's that, when he was growing up watching these movies, like, you always know that the bad guy will lose in these movies, and in his own life he doesn't have that same sort of guarantee.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, to _quote_ Dean, he… The thing that struck me, he says, “Growing up, it was nice to be able to check out once in awhile.”

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And then he says, “I like to watch movies where I know the bad guy is gonna lose,” but that — that first thing, where “growing up, it was nice to check out once in awhile.” Just the fact that he says ‘to check out.’ 

Bea: Yeah, just to drop the burdens that are upon him because of this life.

Remmy: [pained noises]

Bea: And again, I’m going to… I have a lot of John feels bottled up regarding this episode, I have…

Remmy: Yeah, me too.

Bea: Ben Affleck chain-smoking above a balcony. 

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: Just, weary, embrittled soul sucked out of — and I'm — and I'm like, this is a _fun episode!!_

Remmy: [continues laughing] 

Bea: What’s wrong with me?!

Remmy: But I'm with you there! I'm with you there... It's just like… every incoherent thought I have about Dean, and his relationship with media, and his childhood and how, you know, he… We like to say that he raised himself, and he did, but TV was his parent and friend and therapist and window into the world, as warped as that window is. Because he _didn't_ have friends outside, he — 

Bea: Yeah. And like, the questions that he couldn't bring to John, he would try to answer through what he could glean through television, The media around him.

Remmy: Oh my god… I… 

Bea: And you can see how much of his personality is propped up in these interests, you know? Like, it became vitally important to him to have the same musical interests that his father did. And you can see the time capsule of his interests, that he would consider his formative likes and dislikes. And he takes these on as a personality feature, almost. As opposed to just a part of the things I like and dislike, that aren't actually me.

Remmy: It's just so many John feels. So many young Dean feels, and also just… [sighs] I would not even know how to _begin_ to express my feelings on… You said, y’know, Dean can't express his interests with Sam because… it's just the relationship that they have. They’re kind of snarky at each other, and they kind of neg on each other. It's friendly, and it's how they love each other… But he just needs a Charlie. He _needs_ a Charlie. 

Bea: Yeah… 

Remmy: He needs someone that he can open up to. And when he does open up, and when he does let that freak flag fly, it's just — He _glows._

Bea: Exactly. You can see how much more of the world is available to him if only he had the confidence. Or if only he had the support structure, there, to allow him to wander out beyond the current perimeter he's enclosed himself within.

Remmy: Yes, yes.

Bea: ‘Cause you know he has interests. We see the teasing, like: oh, he likes romance movies, he likes Taylor Swift, he likes all of these things, but he conceal don't feel those things. He doesn't want other people to know, he just doesn't have — There's no fertile ground in his life for him to share his interests and nurture them.

Remmy: Yeah... Yes. And it just makes me so, so sad for him… 

Bea: Yeah. And just… sitting here… my eyes like two dead birds…

Remmy: It makes me think about Charlie a lot. A lot.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And the wake of her death. 

Bea: The loss, there.

Remmy: Yeah… It's a lot, and it's… it's tough.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: But let's not — Let's not talk _tough_ , let's talk —

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: [pained laugh] Let's talk about the show! And how _funny_ it is, remember??

Bea: It's fun, guys!

Remmy: [mocking] Such a _fun_ episode!

Bea: In all earnestness, it really is. And it's just like, the trauma… 

Remmy: [laughs] Right… But, but we have Sam with Sam at the comic shop.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: Sam with Samantha.

Bea: Sam and Sam are at the comic shop.

Remmy: And Sam is letting his own freak flag fly, when he’s trying to get information out of Sam[antha] as an insurance agent. But he's, “I'm gonna ask you some questions, they might be a little weird but, you know… it’s…”

Bea: “You know, the situation is a little weird, so I think it calls for it!”

Remmy: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. And Sam[antha]'s just like, “You’re… what…?” And Sam is a horrible liar this whole scene, here. He's just floundering for excuses. I'm like, where's your FBI confidence, dude??

Bea: Yep.

Remmy: But he's doing it in a very humorous way. It was deliberate. He's just trying to — Trying to wave off, “Oh, no, I'm not asking about ghosts, look over here.” 

Bea: Yeah. Yeah, don't worry about that.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And it's from this conversation that we find out about the fourth figure in that photo. His name is Jordan, and he was the shop owner. He was close to all three of them, but unfortunately he has passed away due to cancer. The shop was left to Samantha and Dirk. Jordan had fired Stuart for stealing, and so Stuart wasn't part of the shop anymore, but Samantha hired him back, and… [laughs] Sam's just kind of like, ding ding ding we have a winner.

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: “So, so what happened? Oh, _cremated_.” So… that kinda sucks, but there all of a sudden is the frost building, and Sam checks the EMF and is, like you're saying, he’s ‘don't worry about this don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain…’

Remmy: Yeah, he pulls out the EMF reader, and it starts going wild. He's like, “Uh, just one sec, I just — I just gotta check this…” And it starts _screeching,_ and Sam[antha]'s like, she's eyeing it, “What’s that…?” and Sam's, “Oh nothing it's just, I'm, uh...” He's waving it around, he's got his back to her.

Bea: He says, like, detecting carbon monoxide.

Remmy: Yeah! “It's a carbon monoxide meter.” And [Samantha] gets a little bit more alarmed, Samantha's like, “Uhhh, and… is that bad?”

Bea: Yeah!

Remmy: And Sam’s, “Uh, yeah… Yeah, that's pretty bad”

Bea: Yeah, you're going to f****** die with that much carbon monoxide ring-a-ding-dinging in your room.

Remmy: [laughs] And… But before that can… Before Sam can dig himself into an even deeper hole, David Yaeger animates.

Bea: David Yaeger knocks Sam out, and Samantha screams. So Sam's down for the count again, poor buddy.

Remmy: Yeah, one clock to the head with a crowbar… Not a crowbar, it was a wrench, it was like, an iron wrench. I dunno why he was holding an iron wrench, but… Well, anyways, yeah, one clock to the head and Sam's out. And then Samantha screams and I'm, oh no… don't kill Samantha… 

Bea: Yeah, don't do it!

Remmy: Yeah, but, we cut to black.

Bea: We’re, yeah, we’re tricked by the commercial break here.

Remmy: Mhmm. 

Bea: And Sam comes to to find Samantha shaken but still alive. And he has to go chop-chop through the list like, “Okay, ghosts are real, they can possess stuff, okay let's go.”

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: “Oh, so you're not from insurance?” Hell no.

Remmy: And then we get the same scene with Dean and Dirk later, but it was later. That chop-chop “Werewolves? Vampires? Ghouls?”

Bea: Yeah, “Pretty much whatever you can think of is true now _get inside the salt circle,_ goodbye.”

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: But before we go to that one, Sam grabbing that one memorabilia item and being like, “So, is this expensive??” Why, no, why? And he just throws it at the door, and Samantha doesn't even get through her full thought but it's, the glass is shatterproof.

Remmy: Uh huh. He didn't even wait for an answer on ‘is this expensive?’ before he chucks it at the door.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And Samantha says, “No!” ... shatterproof glass, bruh. 

Bea: Yeah, you aren't getting very far.

Remmy: The doors are locked, Sam asks why the doors are locked, and Samantha says Yaeger took the keys.

Bea: Yes. So, for those at home who are keeping track of where the keys are at this point — 

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: Spoiler alert, they do become important. They were initially in Stuart's care, Stuart's mom brought the keys to Samantha when she went to go get food and all that. She also filled in Samantha with what was going on with Stuart, and now the keys have been taken from the shop and they have gone off with David Yaeger, AKA Hatchet Man.

Remmy: Hatchet Man!

Bea: So, this scene goes over to Dean eating chips and this is where, as we stated previously, he’s compiling the best deaths that have happened within the All Saints' Day series.

Remmy: Dean and Dirk are having a lot of fun with talking about their favorite deaths. 

Bea: Yes. Getting their nerd information out there in the open.

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: And Dean takes a call, and Sam says that it's a ghost. Dean's already wondering where the graveyard is, but they’re like, nope, Jordan was cremated, and oh by the way there's a possessed David Yaeger coming for you at the hospital. And Dean is _so psyched._

Remmy: He is _so_ excited. He's so excited. He's like, “David Yaeger's coming here??”

Bea: “He's gonna fight _me?_ ”

Remmy: “Are you telling me. That _David Yaeger_ is on his way?” And Sam's like, “Dean. Dean, pull it back, come on, let's focus. Pull it in.”

Bea: Yeah. Put your head in the game.

Remmy: And Dean’s, “David Yaeger. Is coming _here_.”

Bea: He's so ready.

Remmy: You can practically see the b**** face on Sam.

Bea: Yeah. And like, also, this conversation’s not exactly quiet, y’know, and Dirk’s going to be listening in and being like, the f*** are you talking about…?

Remmy: Well, we _do_ see Dirk do a little double take to Dean.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And the next scene is that ‘pulling back the curtain’ wham bam thank you ma'am “yes, ghosts. Vampires, ghouls, werewolves.”

Bea: Yep, yep.

Remmy: Get in the salt circle.

Bea: “We ain't got time for this. I'm pouring out salt, get in the circle, _do not leave_. Stay in it, whatever happens.” And meanwhile Sam is attempting to pick the lock over at the comic shop, and he's trying to figure out, why now is Jordan attacking Stuart? If it's not been a recent thing that Jordan's passed away, then why is he attacking Stuart now? And Samantha basically brings out to open-air that Stuart's been stealing, and she's been taking his pay, but a ghost isn't really gonna know about that.

Remmy: And there's obviously long-standing resentments, anyways.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Between Jordan and Stuart.

Bea: Yeah… I'm sorry, I'm just sitting here and like, my eyes just widened, and I just nodded like, to say the least… 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: Yeah. Woof. And they're having no luck with this lock picking, so Sam goes to a backup. And he just goes, “Eh, so… Do you have any cleaning supplies?” Then we cut back to the hospital, at Stuart's hospital bed. And Dirk is kind of losing it, there. His breath is fogging up, and the room is acting extra possess-y.

Remmy: Uh huh. The cabinets are rattling, there's a wind flowing through the room. There's some spooky noises going on — but maybe that's just the soundtrack… Oh! The TV is flickering, and Dirk is just having a bad time. He's freaking out.

Bea: Yeah, he just later days out of there.

Remmy: Yep. He says, “I can't, I can't!” and he runs.

Bea: Meanwhile, Dean is going down the hallway of this hospital. And initially he's going to break the emergency glass… 

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: But then he goes, ‘oh, no way, I can just open the door and grab the axe haha,’ and he takes that. He heads back around, looking for where this David Yaeger might come from.

Remmy: And we see this darkened hallway, very slasher, mirroring the movie that we've been seeing clips of.

Bea: Yeah. Yes. 

Remmy: Through this whole — Where David Yaeger’s been stalking an abandoned hospital.

Bea: And Stuart's mom has come in: she sees David Yaeger.

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: And is just kind of, ‘uhhh…’ 

[simultaneously] ‘Uhhh, nope!’

Bea: And then Dirk is yelling.

Remmy: Yeah!

Bea: For David Yaeger/Jordan: “If you want to go after Stuart, you have to go through me!” And Jordan’s kind of — 

Remmy: I really liked that.

Bea: Yes. 

Remmy: I really like that, because Dirk — You know, we saw Dirk flee the room, but when David Yaeger comes in front of Stuart's mom Dirk comes out and confronts Jordan/Hatchet Man.

Bea: Yeah, Dirk really steps up.

Remmy: Yeah, he does. It was so good: he squares off against this life-sized model of this murdering ghost, and he says, “I know who you are, I know what you want, and if you want to get to Stuart then [you] have to go through me.” [laughs] And we have this moment of tension between Dirk and the Hatchet Man, and then… Yaeger says… ‘okay.’ Well, he doesn't _say_ it, he just starts charging towards Dirk. And Dirk's like, “oh s***,” and he runs off.

Bea: Yeah, “oh crap,” and he is _gone_.

Remmy: He bolts.

Bea: And here's where we start drawing the deep parallels between what's happening on the movie and what’s happening in real life. So, there are a couple of security guards — 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: And they’re eating popcorn while watching All Saints' Day 3.

Remmy: I looooved them! I love them.

Bea: Yessss.

Remmy: I love them so much. I would watch this entire episode over again just for the security guards.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: They’re beautiful.

Bea: Yeah, and it was a really fun mechanic, too. That we have — Okay, so ‘Camera 6’, we can see Dirk has gone running. He's trying to escape David Yaeger, and on the movie screen there’s the woman who’s trying doors and who trips over nothing. And she just keeps trying to escape.

Remmy: And the security guards are having a grand ol’ time making fun of her. Like, “Run girl, run!”

Bea: Yeah, yeah.

Remmy: “Why you goin’ so slow?! What did you just trip over?!”

Bea: There's so much lampshading going on, too. Because earlier Dirk was saying, “Oh, it kind of pushes belief, you wouldn't see a hospital so empty…” 

Remmy: Uh huh. 

Bea: “At that time of night,” and Dean’s like, “Nah, I've been in enough hospitals, that's kind of legit.” And then lo and behold here we are in a hospital late at night, and Dirk is screaming for help. 

Remmy: There’s nobody there. 

Bea: He goes running to the elevator the same way that the movie heroine does. They're both frantically hammering on the buttons and yelling, “You're dead! You're dead!!”

Remmy: We go back to the security guards, they’re like, “Yeah! Press that button! You better get in that elevator!” And we can see the screens behind the two security guards that are actually — This whole time, we can see Dirk running through the hospital on the security monitors, but the security guards are just too focused on the movie to [notice]. 

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: It's comical and, like you said, it's such a good mechanic. To go back and forth between the movie, the All Saints' Day movie, and Dirk.

Bea: I super liked that they did this. It was a lot of fun. And, yeah, Dirk's just jamming on the elevator keys, like, “Come on come on _come on_ ,” and I'm… That doesn't work! That doesn't speed anything up!

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: But I understand the impulse. Go hard. And we cut from that back to Sam and Samantha. And Sam has a Scooby-Doo lunch kit that he’s loading up with chemicals.

Remmy: Uh huh! 

Bea: And, another stellar line coming out of here, where Samantha is like, “How did you learn to do all this…?” and Sam just, deadpan, “I had a messed-up childhood.”

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, so Sam's making a f****** bomb in this aluminum lunch bin.

Bea: Mhmm. He hangs it up on the back door of the comic shop, and they go and they hide and it's just: _tick, tick, boom!_ The door blows off the hinges, and they’re able to get out. And both Sam and Sam[antha] are standing there like, “ _Cool._ ”

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Then we go back to Dirk, and now he’s found his way to the morgue. And he’s just _slightly_ freaked out, and a hand grabs his shoulder. He whips around, but it's just Dean, everything's okay.

Remmy: Just slightly freaked out, yeah.

Bea: Just _un petit peu._

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: So Dean, I don't know, he's kind of like, “Why are you here? I told you to stay put!” blah blah blah, that's not really… 

Remmy: Yeah, I'm kind of like, why is _Dean_ even in the morgue? How did he make his way to the hospital basement??

Bea: He's just like, ‘Where would I go if I was David Yaeger looking for a fight?’ and so he's just been sitting here with his axe like, this is gonna happen.

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: Very excited. And, yeah, we get this great moment here where Dirk's like, “He's here.” You know, like, David Yaeger/Jordan, he's here. 

Remmy: Uh huh. 

Bea: And lo and behold, a body rises off of one of the slabs. And it _is_ Hatchet Man.

Remmy: It's so ‘80s horror. It's so good.

Bea: Oh my god, yeah.

Remmy: It's like every — We're pulling out every cliche.

Bea: Yes. And not only that, but the life-sized model sits up and pushes [his] button, and it's the recorded: _“Time to slice and dice.”_

Remmy: [laughs] I loved that little mechanic. I mean we got — If Yaeger ever wants to talk, ‘cause we don't actually ever see or hear from Jordan.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Jordan as a ghost is just possessing and animating these objects, but… [laughs] But Jordan knows what he wants to say, and he presses the button and we get those recorded little action figure bits from the doll.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: _“It's time to slice and dice,”_ or _“Sometimes we all do bad things.”_

Bea: Yes, oh my god. And here is the moment where they decide to splice in the fake trailer. Or, I guess it would be the real in-‘verse trailer.

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: For this fake movie. And it walks us through the history of how David Yaeger became Hatchet Man. And it's like: “ _Three years ago, on Halloween in 1983 —_ [dramatic announcer voice] _a practical joke turned deadly._ ” And, yeah, we're seeing a bunch of recycled footage from _Route 666_ , and the Season 5 episode where we see Matt Cohen as John Winchester in the garage.

Remmy: Mhmm.

Bea: [sighs] Oh my god… 

Remmy: Okay, so, you know what: It wasn’t until you said 1983 — 

Bea: Yep.

Remmy: — that I even had the thought, but wasn't Dean born in ‘84?

Bea: Dean was ‘79, and Sam was ‘83.

Remmy: Okay, yeah! 

Bea: Yeah. All Saints' Day would be November 1st, 1983. And November 2nd would have been the day Mary died.

Remmy: [pained] Oh my god…

Bea: So, again, when I talked earlier, like, ‘This is a fun, happy [episode]…’ But as soon as I started connecting these dots… 

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: I — I sat at this point of the episode, and I had to parse through what was going on in my head. It was basically this, this big medley that had to do with, y’know, Sam and Dean, how they grew up. ‘Cause, again, the movie dates are _the year_ Sam was born, and the year that Mary died.

Remmy: The _day_ before… 

Bea: Yeah

Remmy: …Mary died. So — So this trailer, it was the three years before, right? It says that he — 

Bea: Yeah. So that on, um, [on] November 1st of ‘86 is when he rises to get revenge.

Remmy: So the trailer opens up on November 1st…

Bea: Mm, October 31st

Remmy: October 31st, sorry, 1983. And in the trailer we have this footage of Matt Cohen as John Winchester, and the narrative is just inviting us to draw these parallels. They’re telling us to think about this, they're inviting us to be retrospective about it. And it's just like — It gives me John feels!! It gives me John feels about, you know, this one event in John's life, this _fire._

Bea: Mhmm.

Remmy: David Yaeger, he — The ‘practical joke gone wrong’ was that he was working in a garage and then he got crushed under a car. And then they set the car on fire, so that's why Yaeger looks the way he does. But… again, the John parallels! This one night in 1983, his entire life goes up in flames and he becomes a monster.

Bea: Yeah. And, just take the name ‘David Yaeger’, okay — 

Remmy: Do I want to?!

Bea: If — if you're translating it to name meanings, it’s ‘Beloved Hunter’.

Remmy: [pause] Noooo. 

Bea: Yeah!

Remmy: Nooooooo.

Bea: Yeah!!

Remmy: Is it, really?

Bea: It is! It is, really. So like, when I said I had to sit down and process my f****** feelings… 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: As soon as I heard the last name Yaeger, I was like, ‘Oh f***, we got some on-the-nose s*** going on, here. What does it mean?!’ And by the time we got to this fake trailer, and there was the old footage that they were recycling — It was Matt Cohen there, and with the dates that are involved; with the nostalgia that we’re being invited to think about, here… There’s this really strong parallel.

Remmy: Yeah. We're being told to consider Dean's own childhood. And on the Dirk mirror, y’know, Dirk's poor relationship with his father… [heavy sigh] Ohhh my god… 

Bea: And, okay, so if David Yaeger is drawing strong parallels to John, then… To look at what happened to David Yaeger, like you said, there's this one moment that completely turned his life around. But he _died_ , and he rose again from the dead, and what he pursued after reviving was revenge.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: All that David Yaeger cares about is going and finding revenge. I mean, we talk about it a lot, but there's this really complex relationship that the Winchesters have with death. And to have David Yaeger be one of many mirrors that are brought to them, to give us this opportunity to reflect… So, David Yaeger the [action figure] is being possessed by Jordan, who Samantha said was like their own personal Willy Wonka, who taught them everything they know. Samantha, Dirk, and Stuart had him as a father or an uncle figure, and yet there’s this wrong that Jordan sees one of them performing and he can't abide by it, and he has to do something [to stop it].

Remmy: And Samantha says that the shop was his life. And it's just…

Bea: Yeah, [he] taught them everything they know.

Remmy: Oh my god, you're sending me spiraling again. Because the shop was [Jordan’s] life, it was everything to him. We can draw that parallel to John and hunting, and how with the Dirk and Samantha mirror, it’s… Jordan really was a father figure to — Oh my god, Jordan!! His — I’m sorry — Jordan with a ‘J’, and John, and Sam, and Dirk and Dean… 

Bea: Yep.

Remmy: [sighs] I'm f****** mad! So mad!!

Bea: This — Again, I felt so bad when [we] started recording this. Like, ‘I should have much more enthusiasm than this!’ But I was just sitting there, this hollowed-out husk of a human — 

Remmy: [background giggling] 

Bea: — being like… Why did I have to… They never even _said John's name_ this episode!! 

Remmy: Ohhh my godddd. Can I now have feels about Dirk confronting Jordan earlier, with a Dean/John mirror now… 

Bea: I’ll — I’ll give you one little thing we can cut, but ‘Jordan,’ the name meaning, is ‘to descend.’

Remmy: …I hate it. Thanks, I hate it!

Bea: You're welcome.

Remmy: [laughs] Don't cut that! The listeners have the right to know! Oh my god… Let’s — 

Bea: [deep sigh]

Remmy: Let’s move on. This, this is… 

Bea: I don't think I can! Like I said, I had a high school-level essay that I could write here about the parallels between Samantha, Dirk, and Jordan, and Sam, Dean, and John.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Oh my god, the whole fact that this episode — Like, why are we sitting here feeling sad when the episode was so funny?? 

Remmy: So funny!

Bea: And so fun!

Remmy: So fun, and so good, and so lighthearted, and every moment was — You know, watching it I just had a grin on my face!

Bea: Yeah, and I'm like… It's the veneer again. You look at Dean, and when he talks about his childhood he's always trying to put the positive spin on it. He's always looking at all the good times of it, and here we are, like, ‘Well… is that just the candy coating on top of this more serious nostalgia that's going on?’ ‘Cause we can see Sam is not having as nearly as much levity throughout the episode because he — he won't answer Dean's questions about why he dislikes Halloween until very much later but… Dean is the, “C’mon! It's good, it's fun!” and Sam is the, “Well, no, there’s bad memories attached to this.”

Remmy: Mhmm. He’s the grouch. 

Bea: Well, and I'm like… Okay, all of these parallels we’re being invited to consider: Sam's the one who struggled so much with their [childhood], with how they grew up, in a really outward fashion. 

Remmy: [quiet] Oh, my god.

Bea: Dean struggled too, but he didn't let it out. 

Remmy: Ohhh my god… 

Bea: He did the ‘yes sirs,’ he stepped in line. He put the smile on, and…

Remmy: My _god…_

Bea: I’ll — I will write you my f****** essay on this! On this piece!

Remmy: _Bea._

Bea: ‘Why was I sad?’ Oh, I have a billion reasons why!

Remmy: You’re so right. Bea, _you’re so right,_ oh my god…

Bea: I'm sorry!! Because it _is_ a really — 

Remmy: You’re _so_ right. This — _Dean…_

Bea: It's written so well we get two layers to it.

Remmy: This whole Dean/Sam thing. That they're saying, “Oh, Sam the grouch doesn't like Halloween,” and Dean enthusiastic about the whole thing. And, “Oh, Sam, why can't you just lighten up a little bit?” It's — it's a blast straight to the past. Season 1, Season 2. That was Sam, the reluctant son and Dean, the… 

Bea: The ever-optimist, because an optimist was required. But, again, go back to what the summary for this episode was: it was, “as Dean still struggles.” Dean's _struggling_. He's not in a good place, and yet he… He's throwing himself into where he can find enthusiasm and interest. [Sam] brought him on a case that has killer toys, and it has his favorite slasher villain that he now gets the fight, and we’ve paused on that scene for infinity because there's so many feelings that are cropping up!

Remmy: I'm so… I don't — I’m not having fun anymore!!

Bea: I'm _sorry,_ I — 

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: I wasn't either!

Remmy: Oh my god, this is — Okay, I — [in an undertone] I’m really being very serious, this is f****** hilarious.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: I'm having a _great_ time.

Bea: Well, I'm suffering.

[both laugh]

Bea: Yeah, my notes right here say: _talk about feels about vengeance driving beyond death._

Remmy: Yeah… Honestly, I did not make a single John/Jordan/Yaeger — Ah, [misunderstanding ‘Yaeger’ for ‘Jaeger’] ‘Yaeger’ starts with a ‘J’, too! Did you know?! Yeah! 

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: Anyways… 

Bea: Riddle me this!

Remmy: Uh huh, uh huh. See, and you keep saying like, “Oh, I don't know why this is happening to me, because it was such a fun episode,” but it's the writer’s fault!

Bea: They didn't say John!

Remmy: They're inviting us — 

Bea: Yeah!

Remmy: They're inviting us to, to… 

Bea: To give ourselves our own swirlies. 

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: In the toilets, spiral our way down. “Why are you hurting? Why are you punishing yourself? I gave you a fun episode?”

Remmy: [laughs] I… Uh, yeah. Yeah, no, it _is_ very deliberate, obviously.

Bea: Then we get [this] really fun scene. We got Dean with an axe vs. Jordan with two hatchets.

Remmy: Uh huh!

Bea: So, who's going to win??

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: And Dean has this awesome little line that essentially boils down to, “You can walk into the light, or I'll send you there,” and then lo and behold Jordan pushes the button, and it's, “ _Time to slice and dice._ ” And Dean’s just _so happy._

Remmy: He is.

Bea: Like, yassss, we get this fight.

Remmy: Dean's like, “Y’know what, I was kind of hoping you would say that,” and then they face off.

Bea: And then, blam! They’re fighting. Jordan appears stronger than he looks, and Dean kind of has to rally from that. He tells Dirk to get back, and they have at it, there.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And while this is going on, Sam and Samantha are rushing to the hospital. And Samantha is getting the rundown on how ghost possessions, these types of things work.

Remmy: Yeah. Sam says it doesn't make sense, that Yaeger-as-Jordan is traveling the way that he is. Because if he's been cremated, then usually ghosts — The way it works is that ghosts attach themselves to an object, something of great importance to them, and they’re pretty stationary. They're attached to that object, so they can’t go where the object isn’t. And then Samantha gets smart about what that means.

Bea: Yes. 

Remmy: And Samantha is the one who concludes: the keychain.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: The keychain to the store that Jordan loved so much.

Bea: Yeah, and Sam's like, “Sounds great!”

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah! Yeah, Samantha's like, “Um, does that make sense?” and Sam's, “ _Yes_ , yes.”

Bea: “You got it in one, you’re a quick study.” And then, at the morgue, Dean is getting tossed around. 

Remmy: Mhmm.

Bea: And David Yaeger grabs the axe that Dean has lost hold of. [Dean’s] kind of in a tight pinch, but then Dirk stabs the David Yaeger model from behind, and he gets back-handed for it.

Remmy: I know! I felt so bad for them fighting this — It's not a person, it's not a monster. I mean, you can't cut its head off and — 

Bea: Yeah, how do you hurt it in any significant way?

Remmy: Yeah, but I guess they're distracting it long enough that Sam and Sam[antha] get to the morgue.

Bea: Yeah. They're really hoping that Sam and Samantha are the ones that are on the case, and they're figuring out what possession [Jordan] is attached to. But Dean, he — he's getting knocked around. He’s put into a chokehold by the Hatchet Man, and this is when Sam busts in, Samantha on his heels. And he says, “It's the keychain!”

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: And Dean fumbles around on the model, he grabs the keys, tosses it [over], and Sam goes to try and burn it. Samantha grabs a container of ethyl alcohol to use as an accelerant, and they get that key chain hummin’ away in one of those little pans.

Remmy: And the whole time Dean is being choked out against the morgue drawers.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And f******, again, it was so fun, it was so humorous. They keep cutting from Sam and Samantha trying to burn the object to Dean getting the life choked out of him.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: But — but Dean's making these wrap-it-up motions like, ‘Uh, guys? Guys??’ 

Bea: And, forgot to mention, but during the fight Dean grabs two of those — I wouldn't say bed pans, because it's a morgue… They're not bed pans, but two little pans, and he's just clanging the Hatchet Man up against the head, like — 

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah.

Bea: There's so many good little fun moves.

Remmy: It was! I think that… I also have a lot of thoughts about the choreography in the last few seasons.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: I think it's, [imitates kiss] mwah! Chef’s kisses, it’s phenomenal.

Bea: Yes, the fights have gotten stellar.

Remmy: I know, yeah. And so, yeah, Dean lost his weapon and he had to make due. Again, utilizing — We've seen this a lot in the past few seasons, utilizing what's around him.

Bea: Yeah. Environmental.

Remmy: He throws a trash can at [Yaeger], he throws — [laughs] a roll of paper towels at the guy.

Bea: Ah, so good.

Remmy: And then he grabs a couple, uh. I guess they’re… utensil pans?

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And starts to fisticuff with that.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Some improvised brass knuckles.

Bea: So good.

Remmy: But Sam, with the ethanol, gets the keys lit up in one of those same pans.

Bea: Yup, and then the spirit inside David Yaeger goes up. Jordan is done, and Dean is sitting there rubbing his neck. Dirk’s — he’s like, “Okay, is it really over? Just like that?”

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: And you can see Dean’s like, _Just like that??_

Remmy: Dean's like, excuse me??

Bea: It's not that easy!

Remmy: Uh huh. 

Bea: We get our brotherly scene, now.

Remmy: Yep.

Bea: They're driving, heading back home. And Dean actually thanks Sam out of the blue. He appreciates Sam getting him out of his funk.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Getting him a win.

Remmy: He says, “I know what you were doing. You wanted [to] bring me out of my funk, and get me a win,” like you said. It just made me think, did Dean know all along? And maybe he was just humoring it until he wasn't, or maybe they're each aware of each other's motives but, uh, I dunno.

Bea: Yeah, I think they know each other well enough at this point that it's not like they’re really able to trick each other. Even if it was only on a superficial level that Dean was like, ‘Oh boy! A case, I'm going out there,’ I think that there's still this deeper level. Like, my brother is giving me something that… Or, he came to me with something that he knew I would be interested in, and it would be impossible to say no to. And by doing this, and by going through this, I can say that it was really good and it was what I needed.

Remmy: Yeah, it was good.

Bea: And just voluntarily coming out and saying that. Like, “Thank you, I needed that.” And Sam admits that it was a bit of an… _unexpected_ turn on this case.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: But Dean's just like, _stoked_ about the David Yaeger angle.

Remmy: He is. Again, glowing. Sam was basically like, “You know, I wanted to pitch you a lowball, there,” but Dean says — 

Bea: Well, Dean says, “Don't ruin this.”

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: “Let me have this.”

Remmy: Yeah. Dean's more like, “Hell no, this was the best day ever!”

Bea: Yeah. And to me it goes back to that difference in perspective. That we're going to see right away that, to Dean, this was a fun case. And Sam, if he were to dissect this or want to talk about it on a more serious level, then it could ruin that fun. Dean just wants to look at it on the bright shiny level when… y’know, there _is_ some darkness to what happened to this case. This father figure to these three kids [who] turned on one of them.

Remmy: But Dean says, “Nope, let me have this. This was a good day.”

Bea: Exactly. ‘Let's not overthink this.’ And then Sam takes this opportunity to reinforce to Dean, “You can't hide out just because of what happened with Michael. What he did with your face is not your fault, and you did the right thing by saying yes to him. My life was on the line, Jack's life was on the line — you did it for your family, and no one blames you.”

Remmy: Yeah. We talked about it last episode, where Dean is unable to separate his choices from Michael's actions.

Bea: Yeah, his body and Michael's choices. Because they took place in his body, they’re his responsibility.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: I really did appreciate that Sam takes another chance to say, here: “No one blames you for this except yourself.”

Remmy: And Dean says, “That's enough.”

Bea: Yeah. He just is not going to be able to meet Sam on Sam's level for this.

Remmy: No, no.

Bea: Dean's just not going to get over it. But he'll agree that, yeah, we got to just keep moving forward.

Remmy: I actually really like that Sam was saying to Dean, “We don't blame you, nobody blamed you. It's not your fault and you shouldn't blame yourself.” And Dean is hearing that, but he also… And it's not in a stubborn, or petulant, or self-destructive kind of way, but — 

Bea: It's just in a factual way.

Remmy: Right, right. He's just saying, “The fact that I blame myself is enough.” That, y’know, this is something real that I'm feeling.

Bea: It is what it is. I can't parse this down, I can't break this into components where I can find a different secret truth inside of it. This is what it is.

Remmy: And, like you said, Dean is not going to be able to meet Sam on this. But I liked how straightforward it was.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And true.

Bea: I like that we get to see the brothers, like, they’ve matured to a point where that's okay. They don't _need_ to, but they know that they're there for each other. And that counts for something.

Remmy: Yeah, very true to life. I mean, sometimes we just have our s***, and we're not going to get better from our s*** [just] because we're offered a way out, you know.

Bea: Yeah. Everyone has their own pace that they're approaching things. And although Sam is sitting over in that one location, Dean just — he's not going to be able to make it there, and not for a while.

Remmy: Yeah, but I don't know, I still think… As bleak as we're making this sound, I still think it was a hopeful note.

Bea: Yeah. Dean's sitting there and he's going, “I'm here for whatever you need, alright Chief?”

Remmy: Awwww.

Bea: And then Dean gets a little [phone] chime, and, okay, Halloween’s officially over. Now, you've gotta tell me why you hate it.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: And, [mocking self] blah blah blah, a lot about John feels, but here Dean is trying to do a guessing game. He's like, “Is it because I ate all your candy?” Then he goes, “Is it because of Dad?”

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Once again, we have the sunny bright veneer, and then there is this subtext of the harder times that they've had in their lives.

Remmy: And, you know, the fact that Dean said… Not to — not to bring us back down to the pits of despair —

Bea: I'll happily spiral! I'm ready!

Remmy: But, Dean even saying, “Was it something that Dad did?” It… Okay, so this is something that Sam has carried with him for years and years and years, and Dean knows it's just like…

Bea: It's a hard topic, yeah.

Remmy: Yeah, it's something that Dean doesn't know about Sam. But when, I don't know, when Dean said, “Is this something that Dad did?” it rang to me as [Dean] almost, behind a mask of levity, putting forth a concern that… We _know_ that Dean has suffered trauma after trauma under John that Sam’s not even aware of, right?

Bea: Yeah. Well, Sam knows of some, but there's no way that he's going to know the entirety.

Remmy: No, no. There's so many moments in Dean's upbringing that have impacted him so deeply, that Dean's just never revealed to Sam. We get stories here and there, but we also get the feeling that we're only scratching the surface. Now, in Dean's mind, it's like… There are 1500 moments where John maybe ruined something for [Dean], or it's just something that [he] thinks about, these low that [he’s] hit because of John. But [his] entire life was devoted to shielding Sam from everything in the world, including [John] — even though he would never say such a thing out loud, but you know that Dean shielded Sam from a lot of John. And I just think that it would be a lingering fear, that Dean couldn't protect Sam from everything, and there's some things that Dean doesn't know regarding John.

Bea: Yeah. That for Dean to bring up John as the possible culprit for why Sam doesn't like Halloween, it's also bringing up, like, ‘Did I fail you in that fashion?’

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Those old knee-jerk expressions of wanting to protect his brother from the worst of things, even when that includes his father. But Sam, to Dean's relief, is like, “No, it's a different memory of when I was in sixth grade. We were living in Bismarck, and I super liked this girl, and I was so nervous about it that I barfed all over her.”

Remmy: [laughs] “Went to a Halloween party that she invited me to. We were playing bobbing for apples…” And, I’m just like, me knowing where this story is going, I’m like [pained] ‘Did he — did he puke in the — did he —’ 

Bea: That — I'm like, that would be some gross water. That no one — that game is _over._

Remmy: [laughs] You couldn't even hose down the bucket.

Bea: I’m like, burn that house down, buy me a new one.

Remmy: Yeah, yeah. Throw out the baby with the bathwater on that one.

Bea: [pained] He barfed on _her._

Remmy: “And it was super embarrassing, and it was awful, and everyone laughed, and I ended up hiding in the woods.”

Bea: “People ran and screamed.”

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: And yeah, yeah. Dean's just like, “That’s great!” 

Remmy: He — 

Bea: And Sam, “No! I hid in the woods until you came and picked me up!”

Remmy: Uh huh. And Dean is just _thrilled_.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: I don’t know, I also loved that. You know, talking about these slow reveals, these tidbits, these stories that we've gotten over the years… I just love every single one of them, honestly.

Bea: Mhmm… 

Remmy: It's like, every new piece of information is something that we can slot into their history. I dunno, it's just part of any relationship, that there's always something new that you can discover about [another person].

Bea: Yeah. That you don't know everything about someone, but that's not detrimental: that's an opportunity that you're going to find out more. You're going to have these delightful moments of revealing something that the other person never knew.

Remmy: Yeah, that was great. It was super cute.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And very bro, and I missed it. We're on episode 4, and it's been _go go go_ , drama drama drama, and this was just a breath of fresh air. It was great.

Bea: Yeah, it was a really fun monster-of-the-week, despite how we make it sound otherwise.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: It was really fun. And even here Dean is trying to basically — to baffle Sam with costume suggestions. With, “Next year, we're going to do Halloween right.”

Remmy: Oh, I have so many feelings about that! Oh my god. 

Bea: Matching costumes!

Remmy: “Next year, we're going to do Halloween [right].” Just, these moments from Dean, too, on, “You know, we should take a vacation.”

Bea: Yeah! Hearing them talk about the future in casual ways.

Remmy: And it's really been Dean, more than [where] it used to be Sam, in the past few years. Which is — I could talk about that, too. But! But, I don't know, I had a lot of feels about Dean saying ‘next year, we're gonna do Halloween right.’ And cue me crying in front of my TV, because next year is the last year.

Bea: Yeah… What are they gonna give us?

Remmy: Let me — let me run us through the final scene, and then I'll give you my takeaway. Because it ties straight into this. So, the final scene is: we're back in the morgue.

Bea: Yep!

Remmy: We have that creepy morgue ambience, and we've got some music…

Bea: And we've got one of the security guards from earlier.

Remmy: Uh huh! [He] comes in, turns on the lights. He's unconcerned, except there's something — a mess in this room. He sees there was a struggle in this room. There’s things gone, blood on the floor…

Bea: The axe, there's the knife, there's the hatchets.

Remmy: Uh huh.

Bea: And the lights are flickering…

Remmy: Uh huh! Again, very ‘80s horror. The lights are flickering, so the security guard clicks on his flashlight, and he sees the knife and the hatchets, and he rounds one of the tables — that still has a f****** body on it.

Bea: Just out there, yeah.

Remmy: Peak morgue aesthetic. And he lights on the boots of… These workman's boots, and he pans up the figure of David Yaeger, the model. That they just _left in the morgue_ , apparently. And we get a _dun dun dunnnn._

Bea: [imitating Yaeger] _“Trick or treat.”_

Remmy: “Trick or treat!” It was — yeah, we end on this ‘80s horror movie moment.

Bea: Yeah, yeah. Again, invited into the nostalgia, just enjoying it.

Remmy: But, on _that_ , I'll tell you my wish for —

Bea: Please do.

Remmy: For this episode. It's that, next Halloween, I want Yaeger _back_. I want Yaeger back! I want Yaeger back, and I want Samantha, and I want Dirk. Bring them back, they were so good.

Bea: Yeah. Imagine, like — Okay, so Sam and Dean leave, now we have Samantha and Dirk at this comic shop and both of them know the truth. Imagine what you could do with that, there. That could be a lot of fun.

Remmy: They were so gung-ho about the monsters, too.

Bea: And on point!

Remmy: Yeah! Competent.

Bea: “Okay, that's the information you're giving me? I'm gonna work with it, boom. Okay, that makes sense.” Like you say, competent.

Remmy: Samantha with the brains, she puzzled out the comic shop and the keys with Sam. And then Dirk as the hero.

Bea: Yeah, the courage.

Remmy: Yeah! Courage. And it's just, I want them back! I want them back so bad. Can you just imagine, maybe we drop the knowledge that Dean and Dirk have kept in contact?

Bea: There's a new All Saints' Day coming out.

Remmy: Uh huhhh.

Bea: Them texting about it.

Remmy: They've been texting about it, maybe they play — I don't know what the kids play these days.

Bea: Fortnite… 

Remmy: I don't know what the video games are… I can't see Dean playing Fortnite, but… Oh my gosh, can you imagine having an All Saints' Day Halloween episode, and we get it casually dropped that Dean and Dirk are in contact, because I — I just _need_ Dean to have friends. I need Dean to have friends.

Bea: Yes. Yeah, we’re coming back to that. There's the Hunter Hub, there. There's a whole motley of people there, and yet [Dean’s] so apprehensive of [being] there.

Remmy: And Dean’s just… always so alone. Isolated. And it _is_ , half the time, of his own making. But… we have the Hunter Hub… 

Bea: But that's Sam's thing, you know?

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: That's where Sam's interest is. That's where his efforts are, and Dean just can't encroach on his brother’s thing. Like, we're talking about Charlie, we're talking about Dirk: these are people who have connections to the normal life, you know? Things that the average person could have an interest in, and Dean excitedly reaches out to these aspects. And yet, here’s a whole shwack of hunters that have [their own] experiences. You could go ask them questions about how their day-to-day goes, and Dean just isn't interested.

Remmy: I just think it's almost like Dean stumbles across these relationships. He has to click with the person, but he definitely does not seek those relationships out.

Bea: Yeah. He just kind of assumed that the way that he's going is the way he has to go.

Remmy: I have _so many_ Dean feels this whole episode, so… 

Bea: Mhmm…

Remmy: Oof. What was your — What was your takeaway?

Bea: I — I did really like that there was this open invitation to draw parallels. From the get-go, we're told look at Samantha and Sam, look at Dirk and Dean, and from there we can just… We get a playground of just what ideas that raises. What reflections that gives to these characters, and what it means for Samantha and Dirk. So I just really liked having that brought to us so explicitly. Like, ‘ _David Yaeger_.’

Remmy: Yeah!!

Bea: As a name, like… 

Remmy: Yeah. This episode was so, _so_ fun. It really was so fun. But there was so much nuance [to it], and it's so much subtext and, like you said, we’re invited to see it and then follow it to its conclusion. To hold that in the back of our minds and to be retrospective about it.

Bea: Yeah, and the farther back you hold that mirror, you can do a reflection on the entire series. How it began, what John's storyline meant, and what it did to the kids.

Remmy: And what [John] became.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Yeah, oof. Oof! It’s so good.

Bea: So much. 

Remmy: And I love it. It was a good episode.

Bea: Yes. A lot of fun, a lot of tears… [I] really enjoyed it. So… That was your takeaway, too? Or, did you have a takeaway, Remmy?

Remmy: Do I have a takeaway… I just, you know, I really did love Samantha and Dirk. So maybe my takeaway is kind of your takeaway, but… I liked how self-aware Dean was in this episode, you know? It's kind of like, at the beginning we see him holed up in his room, but like I said, it's almost like he's doing right by him. Even though it doesn't…

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: He's just healing as well as he can with the cards that he's been dealt.

Bea: Yeah. It's not a step forward for him, but it's not a step back either. He's just taking a moment to lick his wounds.

Remmy: Yeah, and he comes into this episode so joyous, and so enthusiastic. And it's really kind of… Maybe you can say it's just ‘fake it til you make it,’ but I think he _is_ making it, you know? Because, just like he is escaping in his horror slasher TV, he’s throwing himself into this case and he's having fun with it. He's struggling, he's not okay, but he doesn't let that steal away all of his good moments. It's really… I don't know, it's really good. And then at the very end of the episode, we were told, “I'm not going to get over it, but… I had a good day.” And that's a step.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: It's good. It's so good.

Bea: Yes, and like, “Thank you for doing this for me.”

Remmy: Yeah, yeah.

Bea: Yeah…

Remmy: [laughs] And… that… is Season 14, Episode 4: Mint Condition.

Bea: So, yeah! If you guys listen to this, and if you had similar thoughts — or if you had completely different thoughts! — we would love to hear.

Remmy: Or if you want to even link us some of that meta that we talked about, we’re here for it.

Bea: Yeah, we want lots of perspectives on the show, and not just our own. Because very clearly, like… 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: The spiral got introduced very quickly. [laughs]

Remmy: Yeah, uh… Thanks for sticking with us.

Bea: And so, hopefully you guys will tune in next week when we cover Season 14, Episode 5: Nightmare Logic.

Remmy: Yeah!

Bea: And, as always, if you guys want to email us we're at nochickflickpodcast@gmail.com, and we’re also on Tumblr and Twitter if you guys want to reach out to us there.

Remmy: Yeah, on Tumblr we're nochickflickpodcast, and on Twitter we are @nochickflickpod. Subscribe to us on iTunes, or Google Play, or Spotify: anywhere, and you'll be the first to know when we publish on every Sunday.

Bea: Yes, so, see you guys there!

Remmy: Yeah, see you then! Bye!

Bea: Bye!

[post-outro stinger]

Bea: I watched it, and I was like, “Why am I not…” I’m f******, what's his name, Pagliacci — 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: That f****** clown. I'm sitting there — 

Remmy: [cackles]

Bea: — putting on my clown makeup, like… “This was a _good_ episode… It was a _fun_ episode…”

Remmy: [cackling escalates]

Bea: “Why am I not smiling…?” And then it’s, oh, it’s because _my brain_ is, like, _parallels-parallels-parallels-parallels-parallels-parallels-parallels._

Remmy: You’ve broken me, Bea…

Bea: I broke _myself_.


End file.
